The invention generally concerns a device for deforming or shaping thin-wall components and more particularly but not exclusively a device for repairing damage to motor body parts.
A conventional procedure for repairing motor bodywork damage as occurs for example when the vehicle is struck by hail, when it is hit by a heavy stone, when the bodywork suffers from scratches of considerable depth or when it has elongate dents, involves exposing the metal of the bodywork panel, welding a ring or other pulling member on to the exposed metal and manually shaping the damaged part back into its correct shape by means of a hammer device or a pulling device. That operation is repeated in a stepwise manner until the damage in the panel area is approximately rectified and is accessible for further treatment by means of body filler material and/or painting. All that however is a time-consuming process.
EP-A-0 544 191 discloses a device for deforming or shaping thin-wall components, comprising a holding member which can be welded to the component, and a pulling device for applying a pulling force to the holding member. In the above-described procedure, for the purposes of avoiding structural fatigue of the component to be shaped, that publication teaches that deformation of the component such as a motor body part to restore it to its proper shape, after the holding member has been welded thereto, is to be effected slowly and manually, with visual inspection and control. In that procedure the metal is deformed in the cold condition and, after it has been deformed, frequently retains stresses which under some circumstances result in unstable or wavy bodywork regions which are still under stress, so that frequently such areas have to be subjected to a time-consuming operation for further treatment thereof. In the event of severe hail damage however, damage occurs over a large area, and such damage can no longer be economically repaired by the conventional procedure, having regard to the working times required for that purpose. In addition, the device disclosed in EP-A-0 544 191 is of an extremely bulky and voluminous structure with a plurality of handles which make it impossible to operate on parts of the vehicle body which are inaccessible or difficult to reach, such as for example behind door cladding panels or in the interior of a motor fender.